UKH

Barn owls are one of those birds that are always a great pleasure to see, and always a ‘wow’ moment. Even more so with this one. 

Sleepy Tawney this evening.

Nice, how far away is that?

Nice. Unusually for me, not seen a tawny in while - lots of leaves. But I have seen five species of owl this year and doubt very much that number will increase. 

15 - 20 metres ??

It was only around 8 feet off the ground, think may be this year's brood? All the other birds gave its presence away. Very windy so maybe getting low away from the wind

My local ones are overly intelligent and like to annoy me.

Go out for a walk without a camera or a bike ride they practically come and land on my shoulder.

Go out with my camera with a decent lens and they hide until I am gone.

Looks like an adult to me, owlets likely to still be looking a bit downy. 

I’m back there now - 30 metres, and it just flew within 5 !

Beautiful photos.

This morning, part of a sequence, came that close and fast I couldn’t fit it in the frame !  

Wow, fab photos. You’ll be rightly proud of taking those.

I was very lucky with my Osprey fishing photos that by chance I had had a small zoom lens on rather than my usual go to lens ( a 300mm prime) or I might have struggled to get the photos.

Fabulous stuff, owls are just so watchable, don't know why but there's just something about them

Totally. There’s a mystic about them. Always exiting. 

…. and sometimes entrancing

I can't help feeling that the owl is eyeing you up (and not in a good way). Take care, wouldn't want you to end up dismembered and fed to owlets. More seriously, I saw a barn owl last week above Weardale as I was brewing up beside my car. Totally silent fly by as it watched me.

In case you missed it on the telly years ago, there was a really impressive demonstration of barn owl silence on the BBC's 'Planet Earth':  youtube.com/watch?v=d_FEaFgJyfA&